Two telephone calls to Bombay had confirmed even this. Calls he had not much wanted to make. First to the Gossip Editor of the only Bombay filmi magazine he could remember the name of. Miss Dainty Daruvalla, you are asking if she is a film star? If, if. Inspector Whoever-you-are, she has been on our cover itself. In two-three weeks her first film is premiering. And the call to this as yet unseen, but apparently fully famous, star had been even more unpleasant.
‘I don’t care a jot if you’re the Commissioner of Police himself. I’m giving a lunch party. Here. Now. Can’t you understand that?’
‘Yes, yes, madam. Sorry to disturb. But it is hundred per cent necessary I am knowing if one Mr Vikram Verma was with you on the evening of October the sixth last.’
‘October the sixth? That’s my birthday, you know. Why in God’s name are you talking about that, you insufferable little man?’
‘Madam, it is concerning your friend Mr Vikram Verma. If he is your friend only.’
‘Vikki. But of course he’s a friend. Sweet guy.’
‘Then, madam, can you be telling, please, where he was on said evening, October sixth?’
‘But he was here, of course. Flew all the way from boring old Banares, just to see me. I’ll say one thing for Vikki. He knows how to do things right.’
‘Madam, thank you.’
He had been wet with sweat when he had replaced the receiver of the Hotel Relax’s battered old telephone. Then at once sweat had broken out all over him again when he had realized there was nothing else to do now but tackle H. K Verma. With no more real ammunition than he had had before.
The party leader was sitting in the same tall, spreading-backed peacock chair. But something about him was different.
What it is? Perhaps just only the way he is having his hands, one clasping the other, instead of resting like a statue’s only on the broad arms of that chair. But – do not jump to conclusion – that may be for one hundred and one reasons nothing to do with the death of Mrs Shoba Popatkar. He may have had any sort of bad news. Or be not cent per cent well. Some fever, a bad stomach. Anything.
‘What— What is it now, Inspector? Why do you come bothering and bothering?’
He braced himself. The moment had come. He flung in at once the one piece of half-evidence he did have.
‘Sir, it has come to my notice that one Mr Vikram Verma, your grandson, flew in a private aircraft from Banares to Bombay on the night that Mrs Shoba Popatkar was murdered.’
No response in words. But was there a tiny stiffening in that heavy body almost slumped in the chair? Surely yes.
‘Sir, you have some comment to make?’
‘No. No, Inspector. No, I do not see that there is any comment I can make. Vikram is my grandson, yes. And, yes, he is able to fly a plane. It is his hobby, one that I do not at all— But never mind that. Yes, I suppose the boy may have flown to Bombay when you say he did. Or to Calcutta. To anywhere.’
‘Sir, it is not a question of anywhere. He was flying to Bombay. From here. His plane was in Bombay at the time Mrs Popatkar was strangled. It is that I am asking you to comment on.’
‘I— I have no comment. Why should— Wait, yes. Yes, are you attempting to claim that Vikram is the man you believe came from Banares and— And killed Mrs Popatkar?’
‘No, sir. No, I am not. I am satisfied that Mr Vikram Verma just only saw a certain film star by the name of Miss Dainty Daruvalla during the time he was in Bombay.’
‘Then— Then your inquiries must be at an end, Inspector.’
The slumped figure in the big chair heaved forward as if to get up, to usher out this visitor. The sweat that had flushed on to his heavy cheeks plain now to see.
‘No, sir,’ Ghote barked out. ‘Inquiries are not at an end. For simple reason it is not yet known who was the evil man who committed that callous deed. The murder, sir, of a figure of light in our Indian history. A lady who up to the day of her pointless death was doing nothing but good.’
Again no immediate response.
‘Oh, yes, Inspector,’ the dragged-out words came at last. ‘Of course I am wishing such a— Of course, I am wishing the culprit will be found. But— But—’
Silence once more.
‘Sir, what but it is?’
In the big chair H. K. Verma stirred. Once.
‘Inspector,’ he brought out at last with a sudden bang. ‘Do you have a daughter?’
‘A daughter, sir? What— No, sir. No, I am having just only one son. By the name of Ved.’
H. K. Verma seemed to be pondering this, dark eyes clouded.
‘Very well. But I suppose you can imagine yourself to have a daughter? Daughters even?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He had imagined it. Very often in the early days of his marriage. He had pictured how good he would be to a steadily growing, ever more pretty girl. Lively, innocent. He would have helped her. Pulled out the thorns from the hem of her breezes-flying kameez. The thorns of life. But it had not come about.
‘Now, Inspector, what if one day, coming home, you had found your daughter, a girl you had believed to be good as a decent Hindu girl should be, if you had found that she had run off with some Muslim badmash? That she was living with him in sin?’
‘Well, sir . . .’
‘No. Imagine it, Inspector. And then . . . Then if you had gone and struck that girl to the heart, would you not feel that you had been right? Right to do it?’
‘No, sir. No. Sir, as investigating officer, I have dealt with such cases, many times even. And, sir, no. Such an act is always wrong. Wrong.’
‘Wrong, Inspector? To punish sin? To punish wrong-doing?’
He felt a sharply growing unease under this sudden pounding. Was it too battering? What was H. K. Verma trying to do? What was he trying to bulldoze him into agreeing to?
And was what he had answered really true to his own feelings?
‘Sir,’ he replied at last, moving almost from syllable to syllable, ‘I am not all saying that such a wrong act must be condoned. I think, if I had had a daughter and this had happened to me, I would want in myself to forgive her altogether only. But, sir, I understand that would not be right. There would have to be some mark of disapproval. But, sir, not the taking of a girl’s life. Not even a father has the right to do that.’
H. K. Verma licked once at his full underlip.
‘Very well, shall we take another example?’
The heavy body leaning an inch further forward. Hands gripping hard at the chair’s canework arms.
But it was some seconds before words followed.
‘Inspector, please understand this. What I am putting to you is one hypothetical case only. We are not speaking now of the death of Mrs Popatkar itself. But I am wishing for you to show me you are able to see the whole of a question. I am wishing you, Inspector, to be more than a police officer: I am wishing you to be a full human being.’
What is the man getting at? Why ask me now to be a full human being? Mrs Popatkar, he has given out her name at last even with denials. So is he beginning to tell me something? Despite that hypothetical of his?
A gulp of apprehension moved in his throat.
He saw he was being watched intently as a snake eyeing its prey before the moment of striking.
‘Inspector, consider these circumstances. For some reason it has come to your knowledge, you as a human being, not at all as a police officer, that some person is altogether evil. And, more, that this evil man is imminently proposing to commit some wicked act. Very well, he can be denounced to the police, to one such as yourself, my good friend. But there may be circumstances where that is not possible. Say, this evil man is on the very point of committing this deed, or some other reason prevents you disclosing the facts to the proper authorities. Surely then it is your duty, a good act, the very best of acts, to take the life of that evil man?’
‘Well, sir . . .’
H. K. Verma pounced on the note of doubt.
‘Come, Inspect
or, you can hardly say it would be good conduct, right conduct, to let this evil man carry out his wicked intentions.’
‘No, sir. No.’
He felt a flush of oily sweat springing up.
Why am I being put under such pressures? It must be because he is hoping to convince me. Of something. But what? What?
‘Sir, if I may say it, you are putting one most extreme case. Sir, it is a case in real life not at all likely.’
‘No? Well, perhaps not. But, let me assure from my experiences over many years, that life – what you are pleased to be calling real life – can bring about circumstances one would not have dreamt of until they were occurring, face to face.’
Now is he getting near what has happened to him itself? To what perhaps he has done? All this from my own experiences. What experiences? And circumstances one would not have dreamt of until they were occurring. And then that final face to face. Very much of personal there.
But too late. Fellow rushing on once more.
‘Then . . . Then take another instance, Inspector, perhaps more likely, though still, of course, altogether hypothetical. There is a person, shall we say, who has somehow become possessed with speaking the truth. Always, always. Excellent behaviour, it is seeming.’
Ha, chance now to be showing hundred per cent agreement. Wherever this sudden forgetting of complaints about bothering and bothering may be leading, what he is saying can only give me some useful clues. However hard to untwist. So any encouragement is right to offer . . .
He murmured a ‘Yes, sir’.
‘Excellent behaviour, one might say, Inspector. At first. But, Inspector, you and I are men who have lived in this world. We know the way life is truly conducted. We know, you and I, that there are in this world some truths which are better kept out of the light.’
You and I. H. K. Verma, party leader, man of influence, and one Ganesh Ghote, just only inspector of police. Something very very fishy beginning to show here.
It was at once plain he had failed to keep that doubt well enough hidden.
‘Oh, yes. Come, Inspector, do not be playing the soul of goodness with me. Ask. Ask yourself how many times here in Banares, holy city itself, you have already not told the whole truth to one and all. Have you, for instance, confided everything to that retired fellow who is assisting you? I think you said you had not.’
H. K. Verma flung himself back now in his chair. A mighty sitar sweep of creakings under him.
‘Ah, Inspector, best of motives only. That I am well understanding. But all the same here was one truth you were keeping in dark, yes?’
Fellow has hit home all right. But why is he needing to do it? For softening up? And what, when softening process is fully ended, will I be asked to do? And why is he needing to ask?
‘Very well, sir, yes. Yes, I agree duty is insisting on occasion that a truth be concealed.’
‘Very good, very good. So now, Inspector, let me put this to you. Say, there was a person who was—’
He hesitated, pursed his orator’s lips in thought.
What is coming now? What person is he thinking of? Mrs Popatkar? She was very much against any concealings of truth. So . . .?
‘Say, there was a person who had somehow learnt some truth, one of those truths which we are both agreeing must not be told to all and sundry. Yes?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Where is he going? And am I being taken with him, whether I am willing or not?
‘Then let us say, Inspector, that this truth, were it to come out, would do untold harm to many, many innocent people.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Well, now, Inspector, can you not see – I am asking you, remember, to answer not as a police officer but as a simple human being only – can you not see that in such a case a murder might be, as I have suggested, a good act?’
A case, long stuffed away behind banked-up memories, came back into Ghote’s head. It had been not so different from this hypothetical one H. K. Verma had at last arrived at.
He wished once more, yet more fervently, he had been able to avoid this meeting.
Plainly H. K. Verma must see he was by no means as strong in opposition now as he had been.
‘Inspector,’ came the shot-out question, ‘have you considered what might be the motive for Mrs Popatkar’s murder?’
Oh, before I am getting into this swamp any more deeply, I can at least fall back on police procedures.
‘Yes, sir. Naturally I have considered what motive there might be. We do not need to prove motive in a Section 302 offence, that is to say murder. But it can be most helpful to an investigator to learn what is behind any crime.’
‘Well, Inspector . . .?’
‘Well, sir?’
‘What conclusion have you come to? What do you believe was the motive for the murder of Mrs Shoba Popatkar?’
‘Sir, I have not at all been able to find out same.’
True. Altogether too true. Why should anyone have gone to Bombay from Banares just to kill such a woman as Mrs Popatkar? Why, in particular, should H. K. Verma have gone? But he was in Bombay that night. I am sure of that.
So if he did go to Dadar, commit that act of wrong-doing, why was it? Until I know that, I cannot risk charging this man. This man of influence. This figure, after all, in India’s national life.
‘No? So, on the question of motive you are having an open mind, yes?’
‘Yes, sir. I am supposing so.’
‘Very well then, let me put to you yet one more hypothetical case. Shall we say . . . Yes, shall we say that Mrs Popatkar was threatening to expose some particular individual. Not an individual who had done some wicked thing. We know Mrs Popatkar has many times exposed such individuals. It is a great credit to her. But let us suppose in this instance – it is, of course, just only something I am imagining – let us suppose Mrs Popatkar out of some unthinking love of the truth at any price was about to expose a secret, no matter what, that would do nothing but harm, grave harm, to some very good cause. Would you continue to say then that the murderer was a callous and evil man? I think you were using some such words.’
So step by step, surely, getting nearer and nearer. Now he is saying, almost plainly, the motive for Mrs Popatkar’s death is that she was in possession of a secret that would harm many, many people. But what secret? What secret could it possibly be? And is it a secret that H. K. Verma alone would wish to keep dark? Or is he just only shielding some other person?
He felt an overwhelming need for an uninterrupted time to think.
H. K. Verma – it is all too clear – is attempting and trying to manoeuvre me into condoning Mrs Popatkar’s murder. And he has something of a good case. A murder in the circumstances he has put forward could perhaps be justified. It would be somewhat like the killings in a war. If the murderer was as good a man as Mrs Shoba Popatkar was a good woman. In such a case I might feel some deep unwillingness to make an arrest.
But . . .
But is this case of his so hypothetical? Is he, in fact, putting the case for himself? And is he such a good man? Should I be agreeing now that investigation need not be pursued?
And, another thing, should I be making some answer that will bring from this heavy figure in front of me a full and complete confession?
‘Well, Inspector?’
H. K. Verma’s turn now to await with impatience a reply long in coming.
Ghote squared his shoulders.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘it is the bounden duty of an investigating officer to bring to justice whatsoever person has committed a crime, no matter how much of good intention such a person might or might not have.’
‘Oh, the police officer’s duty. Duty, the excuse down the ages of the man who does not dare to think. It was General Dyer ordering the Amritsar massacre. It was my simple duty. It was the British clinging on to power in India. Our solemn duty to the Empire. No, Inspector, that is simply not good enough.’
‘But, sir, murder is murder. The taki
ng of a life. It is the act of the man without anything whatsoever of scruples.’
H. K. Verma’s face suffused with dark rage.
‘And do you not know, Inspector Ghote, that life after life is being taken in India today, and not one scruple is heard? Men and women have been starved to death. They are being starved at this moment itself. And where are your Section-this charges, your Section-that?’
There must be an answer to that. Find it, find it.
And, yes . . .
‘Sir, with respect, I am believing you are not comparing one thing with another. Oh, yes, sir, I know that the lot of the downtrodden in this country is sometimes very bad, that people are, yes, dying when they should not. But that, wrong as it is, sir, is not murder. Cold-blooded murder.’
‘It is not, Inspector? What then do you think I and my party have been fighting for during so many years? That the murderers of the downtrodden and the starving shall not be allowed to go on with their evil work. When I am Minis— Well, never mind that. Am I making you understand what I am saying?’
He gritted his teeth.
‘Yes, sir, I am very well understanding. A police officer who has to enter the worst slums of Bombay and the pavement dwellers’ jhopadpaddies cannot but understand that.’
‘Good. Good. So now, answer this. If Mrs Popatkar was standing in the way of saving the lives of hundreds of such dalits, of the downtrodden, of thousands, even of lakhs of them, would not her own death be a good act?’
Why is he asking and asking this? He must be attempting to persuade that the murder of Mrs Popatkar is a purely good act. And that it should not at all be investigated. He must be.
What should I say?
An answer that at least put off any final decision rose to his mind.
‘Sir, nevertheless, what you are saying is not at all what has happened. You were stating hypothetical case only, yes? Mrs Popatkar was not standing in the way of so many lives being saved. I do not know what it was that made whoever was killing her do what he did but it cannot have been that.’
Doing Wrong (Inspector Ghote) Page 14